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Male privilege is saving your chattel instead your own life.

Straw3

July 28, 2013

58 upvotes

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Post Information

Title	Male privilege is saving your chattel instead your own life.
Author	Straw3
Upvotes	58
Comments	38
Date	July 28, 2013 5:56 AM UTC (13 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1j7cy9/male_privilege_is_saving_your_chattel_instead/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/male-privilege-is-saving-your-chattel-instead-your.1167742 https://theredarchive.com/post/1167742

Comments

[–]PeterPorky 5 points6 points7 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]Straw3 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]falconheart 6 points7 points8 points 13 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

[–]moonphoenix 4 points5 points6 points 13 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]tyciol 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]tyciol 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Miracle_Fruit 2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]Bodertz 2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]tyciol -1 points0 points1 point 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]Bodertz 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]avantvernacular 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]tyciol 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]avantvernacular 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[+][deleted] 13 years ago (15 children) | Copy Link

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[+][deleted] 13 years ago* (1 child) | Copy Link

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[–]tyciol 6 points7 points8 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 21 points22 points23 points 13 years ago (9 children) | Copy Link

You know men implemented these 'rules' right?

So?

Just because men accepted the idea of male disposability doesn't mean that male disposability is somehow not anti-male. "Internalized misandry" is the term.

Women didn't have a say in anything for a long time.

Nor did the vast majority of men. The gender system and its cultural and sociobiological origins predates most civilizations, and whilst the politically powerful were almost-exclusively men that doesn't mean men per se were powerful. A very small subset of men were powerful, but do you think they held any common interests with their same-sexed subjects?

Finally, the fact that women have historically lacked political power doesn't mean that women haven't had influence over society. There are many ways to get what one wants, influence others, etc... the power of the state is only one of these.

The gender system cannot be pinned entirely on one sex.

[+][deleted] 13 years ago (8 children) | Copy Link

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[–]YetAnotherCommenter 12 points13 points14 points 13 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

It's not disposability. its honor. giving your life so another can live is pretty damn honorable

"Honor" means integrity to one's principles. Giving up your own life to save that of another is only honorable if you accept self-sacrifice as a principle of morality.

That said, if giving up your life so another can live is pretty damn honorable, then please explain why it is always men who are expected to do this for women and never the reverse?

Moral principles must be agent-neutral. When the principle only applies to one gender, it is not an agent-neutral principle.

It is always men who have to sacrifice their lives on the battlefields, in their careers, on the sinking ships, etc. Women were expected to sacrifice their autonomy/self-sovereignty in the name of their families/husbands, absolutely, and this was awful, but their continuing existences were never considered an object of sacrifice.

This expectation of dying for other people has always been applied by social norms to men and not women (you could argue that women dying in childbirth balanced this out but the point I am making is that the social norms were gender norms rather than ethical norms... its a men-women issue rather than a moral-principle issue). Hell, look at Christianity - obviously an influence on the idea that giving one's life for others is the height of noble - what is the gender of the person nailed to the Cross?

The "ethical principles" of sacrificing-life-for-life have always been gendered. The traditional gender system mandated other kinds of sacrifice for women, but never their lives (of course this was expected in childbirth but because that was kind of biologically unavoidable the social norms weren't necessary to pressure it).

[+][deleted] 13 years ago (5 children) | Copy Link

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[–]YetAnotherCommenter 8 points9 points10 points 13 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

Did you ever think that they were married men? I don't know about you but I'd give my life for my wifes in an instant if I was married.

If your wife were to do the same thing, how would society in general react?

Would they be surprised? Possibly. After all, women aren't expected (at least not to the same degree) to give their lives in exchange for men, even the men they love.

And what if she were given the opportunity to give her life in exchange for yours and refused? Would she lose esteem to the same degree as you would if the genders were reversed?

The fact is that the gender system of our society accepts male disposability. Women And Children First, men are the protectors and the providers who have to do the habitually dangerous stuff (except childbirth), etc.

It doesn't even matter who they gave their lives for. It just matters that they gave their lives. Those were real men and they sacrificed themselves for others. Thats honorable beyond a doubt.

I, and pretty much every philosopher who isn't either a Christian or a Comtean, would disagree. I don't believe that giving up one's life for the life of someone else is automatically a good and noble thing.

It doesn't matter if social norms or something else made them do it. They did it.

Interesting ethical theory. So you believe that the reason someone performs any particular action is absolutely morally irrelevant?

They chose death in that situation where the shit hit the fan and social norms were out the window.

How do people make choices? They use cognitive devices to sort between various alternatives. They may use agent-neutral moral principles. They may use accepted norms.

And our society promotes many norms, including ones which make the lives of males more expendable than the lives of females when shit hits the fan.

Social norms do NOT go out the window when shit hits the fan. In the case of male disposability, they prioritize lives on the basis of gender.

Thats honor

If one accepts the proposition that men should be willing to die to protect women, then it IS honorable (i.e. demonstrative of integrity) to be a disposable male.

But integrity to an invalid principle is dangerous, and not something to be unconditionally praised.

[+][deleted] 13 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

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[–]tyciol 2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

If you think that it wasn't honorable because those humans were women then that's on you

It's not so much who they gave it for, just many of us don't necessarily agree that it's so fucking amazing to die to save people. Sometimes it is, it can be very dramatic, but it really depends on the circumstances. I've cried over scenes like this sometimes (Cybersix had 2 amazing ones) but honestly, it's better if it's creative like when an ex-villain decides to save the hero and die in the process.

Stuff like men choosing to sink and freeze to death so women can go float off and get impregnated by some other dude is overdone as hell and not that inspirational when we consider that for the most part it's due to social conditioning and not any independent revelation.

Hell, when it's done en-masse like this, any man who did try to survive would probably get shot by his fellow men, so how the fuck is it bravery? Call me when it's one guy who could get away with surviving and chooses not to, thanks.

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

If you think that it wasn't honorable because those humans were women then that's on you I guess.

That's a complete misrepresentation of what I said.

I don't think that their deaths were not honorable because the beneficiaries of their deaths were women.

I both 1) disagree with the proposition that sacrificing one's own life for another person's is the height of morality, and 2) allege that our society accepts gender norms which demand men lay down their lives to save the lives of women, i.e. that men are seen as more expendable.

This does NOT mean I think that it is automatically immoral to give your life to save another person's, of either sex. If you could not bear to live without the existence of Person X and there's no way to save both yourself and X, then it makes sense to die to save Person X. But this is a gender-neutral principle.

But the social norm of male disposability is hardly gender-neutral.

[–]tyciol 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]tyciol 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]tyciol 3 points4 points5 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]theskepticalidealist 2 points3 points4 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]VortexCortex -4 points-3 points-2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[+]yiliadk -9 points-8 points-7 points 13 years ago (6 children) | Copy Link

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points6 points 13 years ago* (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[+]yiliadk -4 points-3 points-2 points 13 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]YetAnotherCommenter 4 points5 points6 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

That's funny, because half the things my feminist buddies talk about, us being men and all, and even my women feminist friends, if you want to go there, is how men are damaged by the patriarchy and how to fix it.

It is good when feminists recognize that traditional gender norms aren't exactly peachy for men, either.

That said, feminist analysis of the "Patriarchy Hurts Men Too" variety treats the sufferring of men as an epiphenomenon (side-effect) of the sufferring of women, which in turn denies the sufferring of men of possessing any analytical significance because it isn't "fundamental" or "systemic" enough (even though it is clearly caused by the gender system). Thus, "Patriarchy Hurts Men Too" functions as a way to divert discussions of men's issues into discussions of women's issues.

I disagree with the proposition that men who suffer under the gender system are just experiencing a "side effect" of the sufferring of women. I've written several more technical articles exploring this theme over on /r/Masculism (the relevant one is called "Beyond The Binary Gender Structure"). I would suggest you might find it interesting reading.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points3 points 13 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[+]yiliadk 0 points1 point2 points 13 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link